This picture of the Grand Canyon that I took last April on a road trip with my son, Chandler (he was 13 then), is currently the background on my desktop, and I love it. I took it Easter Sunday morning when we got up early enough to see the sun come up over the canyon … the ultimate Easter Sunrise Service.

With the picture filling up my desktop, it almost feels like you are falling in. That’s the interesting thing that I experienced about the Grand Canyon: it takes your breath away the first time you see it in person, but after that, as you stop and see it from different vantage points — which short of hiking down in, is all you can do with the place — it quickly becomes one more angle on a big hole in the ground. Yet now, I’m noticing a different reality setting in — something I couldn’t have known when I was there, and this picture reminds me of it. There’s a long term effect to being there. It’s the simple fact that it’s there. If I took the time to travel there again, I would walk up to the edge and go, “Yep, there it is, just like I remember it,” and that would be significant. Like God and like truth, it just is.

The other reason I like this picture is because it always reminds me of what a great time I had with Chandler. Chandler is a kid of many moods, not all of them pleasant. It helps to remember the good ones when he’s in a bad one.

Like the other day when I pulled into the parking garage to drop him off at his school and he announced he wasn’t going in, and proceeded to get out of the car and start walking home. Well, that’s a bit of a challenge because home is almost ten miles away. I  chose to get out of the car and walk with him; it was the only way I could be sure not to lose him.

It was obvious he didn’t want me with him so I stayed back about ten feet. From there, I found out this gave me an advantage. I could talk to him and he had to hear me. He couldn’t walk away, which he tries to do sometime, because he was already doing that. So I was able to say a number of things from my vantage point ten feet back.

I tried to stay positive and not annoy him. Then it occurred to me to ask him if he knew why I was walking with him, and his answer made this whole experience almost worthwhile. He said I was walking with him because I wanted to be sure he got home safely.

Now isn’t that just like the Lord? We can disobey Him, we can turn and walk away from Him, but kind of like the Grand Canyon, He’s always there — talking to us from ten feet back. And if you think about it, you don’t have to think too hard to realize why He’s there. He’s there to make sure, wherever you think you’re going, that you get home safely.